mind to the enigma presented by that character; and his own constantly
increasing cult for the marshal made him sympathize with the homage
rendered by abdication to that ruinous heritage. The grandson felt the
glory of the grandfather. That was enough to make the enthusiastic
compiler of the "Mémoires" feel himself in sympathy with his taciturn
patron, and on this occasion he felt keen pleasure at seeing him enter
the library. He would show him the proofs just arrived by the courier.
He welcomed the newcomer, and, handing to him the proofs, he said:
"I was just going to ask you to receive me, Prince. Our first volume is
printed."
"I do not understand much about these things," replied the Prince of
Augsbourg, after having glanced at the bundle of proofs, "but all this
seems to me very good." He glanced through them again more slowly,
stopping at certain passages that he recognized, and, a detail that
Alfred was surprised to note, his face grew visibly more sombre. This
made his resemblance to his grandfather much more striking. One would
have said that to hold in his hand this book, which was, in a measure,
his production since he had kept the memorialist at work at his own
expense during the past two years, was more than painful to him. At
last he returned the sheets to the young man, saying: "Yes, that is
very good--but perhaps you will have to add some notes to it. Yes,"
he continued after a moment's hesitation, "I received a letter this
morning informing me that certain documents will be placed at my
disposal. I shall have to go to Paris to fetch them. I have come to
ask you to accompany me--Thanks," he went on as Alfred Boyer nodded
assent, "I did not doubt that you would be willing to come--" He
hesitated again, then with an effort he added: "Doubtless you have
heard something about the Duchesse d'Ivrea."
"The Duchesse d'Ivrea?" repeated the young man. "I thought that title
was one of those belonging to the Princess of Augsbourg."
"It is borne by the widow of my younger brother," interrupted the
colonel, who added in a singular tone: "You are right. All the titles
of the family should belong to the eldest, but my uncle was formerly
called the Duc d'Ivrea, and my brother naturally took the same title.
I am surprised at your not knowing this, after having been busy with
the marshal, as you have, for almost twenty months. It is true," and a
bitter smile curled his lips, "that, compared with him, we are scarcely
interesting. And then my brother and I had not visited each other, and
I do not know his wife. That is why I never mentioned her to you. She
is very ill, she informs me--given up by her physicians, in fact. She
wishes to deliver into my hands some family papers left in her keeping
by my brother. I can rely on you, then. The most interesting part of
them is a correspondence with Moreau during the latter's sojourn in
America. You know that the marshal made a campaign with him in Holland.
He foresaw his failure and wished to prevent it. These letters were
offered for sale some years ago. They got them away from me because
they were wealthier than I, but now they wish to return them to me, and
it is right that they should. We should find a place for them in the
second volume. That will mean a great deal of revising, but it is worth
the trouble. I shall leave you now, as I have many orders to attend to.
We shall start this evening." ...
While making his preparations after this interview, Alfred Boyer
could not shake off an impression, that, vague as it was and without
foundation, seemed to him a certainty. This visit to his sister-in-law
was costing the Prince very dear. There was a mystery in their
relations, and a very painful one. Whence came this rupture, and what
were its causes, so profound that not the slightest mention of a
Duchess d'Ivrea had ever been made either by the Prince or by any of
his five daughters? Not one of them bore this name; they were called
simply the Frédets of Augsbourg. What had happened between the two
brothers? Had this rupture preceded the marriage? Or had that event
been the cause of it?
All these questions presented themselves to the young man's mind
without his having the faintest inkling as to their solution. During
the long months of his sojourn he had not established relations with
any one among the few country families in the neighborhood of Combes.
Moreover, he would have considered himself unworthy of the confidence
that his patron had shown him from the very first, opening his archives
to him, letting him live in complete intimacy with his household, if he
had made any inquiries about the Frédets. From the moment that there
was a question of some family secret, to start a conversation on this
subject with the old relative who acted as housekeeper would have been
as impossible as to try and make one of the young girls talk about it.
He knew no more of the affair when the day after the conversation the
Prince and he arrived in Paris than he did on the preceding evening.
During the journey he had noted the increasing preoccupation of his
companion, who, when they reached the station, said to him: "I do not
know as yet where we shall put up. Let us take a cab and we will stop
at some lodging-house. I used to know a place in the Rue de Bourgogne,
in the neighborhood of the Chamber of Deputies. We will be near the Rue
de Grenelle, where our business is. The d'Ivrea house is the same that
the marshal lived in under the Empire."
"Next door to the house of the Duc de Feltré?" returned Alfred Boyer.
"It was only three days ago that I was transcribing the page on which
he relates their meeting on the sidewalk in front of their houses
on his return from Waterloo, and his refusal to return the Duc's
salutation. How finely the passage concludes: 'Perhaps it was not
just,' he writes, 'but at that time every French officer who had not
fought at Waterloo filled me with horror. I should add that if the Duc
de Feltré deserted us, at least it was not, as in so many other cases,
for money. He was my friend, and I attest that I have always known him
to be an upright man with clean hands.'
"Upright and with clean hands," repeated the Prince. "Yes, those were
his words; I recall them, too. That might have been his own device,
do you not think so? My brother repurchased the house," he added
after a pause. "I do not know how _they_ have furnished it, but the
façade should not be changed. It is of the seventeenth century and
has the grand style of that period. You shall judge of it yourself
this afternoon, for I do not intend to remain here long. I count upon
going to the d'Ivrea house in this same cab as soon as we have engaged
our apartment in the Rue Bourgogne. You will not leave me--I am not
paying a visit to a relative. I have come here to obtain some papers
that belong to me by right as the senior. You have been good enough to
engage your services as historian for our family until the end of the
publication of the 'Mémoires.' Your place, then, is with me."
They had taken their places in the carriage while the ex-colonel was
thus formulating the program of a proceeding made the more mysterious
by these words, and by the irrevocable determination that they
indicated.
During the three-quarters of an hour that it took them to reach the
Rue de Bourgogne, where the lodging-house stood, and then the Rue de
Grenelle, they were silent, the Prince absorbed in his thoughts, and
the young man out of respect for a sadness of which he divined the
cause, without being able to determine its precise nature. The sadness
was changed into an actual contraction of pain when the carriage
stopped in front of a high _porte-cochère_, above which could be read
this inscription, recently restored, as the brilliancy of the lettering
indicated: "Hôtel d'Ivrea." Alfred alighted first and waited before the
open door, ready to assist the Prince out of the carriage. The latter
did not move. This last effort was almost intolerable to him.
"I thought at first I should send you in my place, my dear Boyer," he
said, finally deciding to alight, "but she would not receive you. It is
me that she wishes to see. She has adopted the only way, my veneration
for the marshal. Let us go in--but it is so hard!"
Never in all those weeks that they had lived almost constantly
together had he uttered such intimate sentiments to his companion. His
irritation, which he scarcely gave himself the trouble to conceal,
increased still more as they crossed the court at the back of which
rose the beautiful gray façade he had spoken of, with its high windows
and its ample mansard roof pierced with bull's-eyes. Though Alfred
Boyer was much moved by the family tragedy, of which the Prince's
attitude was an index, he could not but admire the noble aspect of the
structure in which the heroic Frédet had thought to find rest. But
if the exterior of the ancient house harmonized with the legend of
the hero, the interior offered a no less striking contrast to it. The
extraordinary excess of gaudy upholstery, the multiplicity of trifling
ornaments, and the total absence of real works of art, the petty
coquetry of the curtains, everything from the very entrance stairs and
the vestibule gave an impression of false luxury and cheap imitation.
The walls and ceiling of the salon into which the two men were shown
were draped with blue satin, the assorted portières were held up by
silver-fringed curtain rings; double curtains of heavy silk and lace
veiled the windows. The sumptuous upholstering of the furniture utterly
lacking in taste, the overladen garnishment of the mantel capped the
climax, and made of this sumptuous apartment an almost questionable
place. It fairly reeked with orders from the fashionable draper,
of bank bills, and nothing showed personal taste. The abundance of
coronets scattered everywhere proclaimed the parvenu. That the woman
who ordered such furnishings for the austere mansion should be the
Duchesse d'Ivrea was one of those paradoxes of fate that amuse only the
unthinking. When one has such a passionate adoration for a hero as the
compiler of the "Mémoires" had for the Duc d'Ivrea, such antitheses
seemed to be a profanation.
Alfred was not surprised, then, at the visible repugnance shown in the
face of the actual bearer of the name and arms of the Frédets during
the few moments passed in the salon while they were waiting to be
presented. The Prince had sent word by the servant that he was there
with the gentleman who had charge of the publication of the marshal's
papers.
As if turning his back on this cheap luxury, he had gone and leaned
against the window, from which his rude hand had roughly pushed aside
the flimsy curtains. He looked out on a narrow garden to which the
first shoots of spring were already giving a touch of green, and which
was vulgarized by a Japanese kiosk with colored windows. When the
servant returned to the room, Alfred could see that the eyes of the
sturdy hunter were suffused with tears.
"Well?" he demanded almost imperiously. "Madame la Duchesse is awaiting
Monsieur le Prince," was the reply, "but alone; she is too ill this
morning to receive two visitors."--"What did I tell you, Boyer!"
exclaimed the Prince, not caring whether or not he was heard by the
footman. "She wants me to come to pay her a visit, but I have not
come with any such intention, and I will not have it so. I came with
you to obtain the papers. Let her receive you or not in her bedroom,
that is of no importance. You are none the less here in the house, and
officially. Wait for me here then. It will not be long." Ten minutes
later the irascible nobleman appeared again, holding in his hand a
large sealed envelope, which he displayed, saying: "It is the first
restitution, and the most important for us: the correspondence with
Moreau."
And when they were again in the carriage, rolling toward the Rue
Bourgogne: "I must do her this justice," he continued, without giving
his sister-in-law her title, "she was quite correct. I found her in
bed. I had never seen her, as I have already told you. She has the
reputation of having been very beautiful, and she must have been.
Though she is worn by sickness, she still has fine features and
astonishing eyes. She is dying of cancer of the liver. She knows it;
she told me of it. She returned these papers to me very simply, saying
that on my next visit she would give me other documents, which she
says she must arrange. I am not her dupe; they are all arranged. She
wants to prove--though I have not the slightest idea to whom--that the
Frédet family recognizes her since the Prince of Augsbourg goes to her
house. But the matter is done with. I have the packet necessary for our
work. We can start back again for Combes with our booty this evening or
to-morrow, and though it is to be regretted that some parts of it are
lacking, still they are mere trifles. But let us assure ourselves that
we have not been cheated.
"There were thirty-seven letters, according to the catalog of the
sale at which they bought them. Good, here we are! we can go upstairs
and make sure that the number is correct. Will you take charge of the
matter and count them carefully? Thirty-seven--"
When they were both in the apartment, consisting of two little
communicating bedrooms, that had been reserved for them, Alfred Boyer's
first action was to open the envelope, which was fastened with a seal
bearing the escutcheon and device of the Frédets. His historian's heart
beat high as he saw that it was not merely a matter of simple notes,
but of long letters, some of which covered ten or a dozen pages. He
began to count them, drawing them out of the envelope one by one.
He was unfolding the fifteenth when he noticed a smaller envelope,
that had been slipped into it. He took it out and read the direction:
"For the Prince of Augsbourg." The envelope had not been sealed. He
opened it mechanically, thinking that it had some connection with the
correspondence. In it was a sheet of paper, again with the crest of the
Frédets, on which he read with that swift look that takes in ten lines
at a glance:
_"This is my will, which annuls all preceding ones. I constitute as
my sole legatee Monsieur Jules Frédet, Prince d'Augsbourg, under the
express condition that he shall personally conduct my funeral, that
he shall have my body as well as that of my husband deposited in the
tomb of the Frédet family, and that I appear as donor of the letters
to General Moreau in the forthcoming 'Mémoires' of the marshal. If
Monsieur Jules Frédet does not accept this legacy, my will deposited
at my notary's shall be valid in place of this. Given under my
hand"_--here followed a date and beneath it the signature: "_Duchesse
d'Ivrea_."
"Is the count correct?" This question, snapped out by the Prince
through the open door from the end of the other room where he had gone
to dress, startled the young man. Surely he was quite innocent of all
design, and he had no sooner discovered the confidential nature of
the paper than he replaced it in its envelope. Nevertheless he had
discovered its contents, and it was with cheeks flaming like those of a
guilty man that he replied: "I do not know yet, but I have just found
this in the correspondence." He had on the tip of his tongue the avowal
of his involuntary indiscretion, but false shame restrained him.
"An envelope?" said the Prince. "Addressed to me? It must be some trick
she has devised to get a letter to me. If it is a letter I shall tear
it up without reading it. Let me see"--he had advanced to the door of
the room and began reading aloud: "_This is my_--"
[Illustration: Paul Bourget]
He stopped short. He had turned terribly pale. Alfred saw that his hand
clenched over the sheet as if to crush and tear it. Then, folding
the paper, he returned it to its envelope and placed it on the mantel
under a book, as if it were of no importance. He came back to the door
and looked at Alfred, who was already bent over his work, prudently
avoiding this look. He seemed to have a question on his lips that he
did not put into words. He had stopped while shaving to call out his
question. Without saying anything more he finished shaving while Boyer
continued to arrange the letters with hands trembling with emotion,
and the same emotion shook his voice as he said, finally breaking the
silence, when the work was done:
"The thirty-seven letters are here."
"They are all here, eh?" replied the Prince. He was so upset that he
did not notice the young man's embarrassment. "You need not begin to
examine them until to-morrow morning," he continued. "I give you leave
of absence for this afternoon. You have not been in Paris for a long
time, and you may have some friends that you wish to look up here. You
are at liberty for the rest of the day, but come back at about six
o'clock to see if I need you."
He had scarcely reached the sidewalk of the Rue de Bourgogne, when the
young man felt so strongly the pangs of remorse at not having confessed
his indiscretion that he stood still for several minutes, asking
himself whether he should not at once go upstairs and tell the Prince
that he had read the will. At the same time he saw that, once in the
Prince's presence, it would again be impossible for him to confess.
Not that he feared reproaches for the act itself; he had only
done as he had been directed in ascertaining the contents of the
envelope, which, moreover, was open. His silence afterward was easily
explained by timidity. What now made the avowal so painful was the
knowledge that he had surprised the grandson of his hero in a moment
of mental anguish. The manner in which the Prince had spoken of his
sister-in-law, his attitude at the d'Ivrea house, his gesture when he
had taken up the envelope, his first words, then the contraction of
his hand over the paper--all these indications combined to reveal an
aversion which could not arise from a mere family disagreement, such
as is ordinarily dissolved by death, but from a most intense, a most
violent contempt. The silence concerning her maintained by the family
proved that the aversion was not personal. Why? For what reason had all
the elder branch taken such a stand against the marriage of the head
of the younger branch? Alfred could no longer doubt that the Duchesse
d'Ivrea knew the disposition of her relatives toward her. The method
she had adopted to send her will to her brother-in-law sufficiently
proved that.
Then why did she make this will? Why should she leave this fortune
unreservedly to relatives for whom she ought to have a hatred equal to
their own?
Suddenly the terms of this will that he had scarcely looked at--but how
could he ever forget its smallest detail?--recurred to the young man's
mind. The funeral, conducted officially by the Prince, the place in
the family tomb at Père-Lachaise, the name in the "Mémoires" of the
marshal--it would be to acknowledge the relationship and the marriage
with the Duc d'Ivrea, giving a formal revocation to an ostracism that,
doubtless, had lasted many years and exasperated her womanly pride.
The Duchess had placed the bargain entirely in the Prince's hands.
The figure of the latter actually holding in his hands the paper that
formulated this bargain arose before Alfred's mind with the clearness
of a perfect image, and again he saw the conflict of the three emotions
which his face had expressed: astonishment, anger, hesitation.
The Prince had hesitated. He hesitated still. Alfred, who had gone a
few steps in the direction of the Bourbon Palace, stopped a second time
to turn back to his lodgings. For a long time his eyes were fastened on
the windows of the second floor, behind which a drama of conscience was
being enacted of which he would soon know all the details. As yet he
could only see facts that were of too doubtful a significance to enable
him to form an opinion. "After all," said he, shrugging his shoulders,
"it is none of my business. It is for the Prince to decide whether the
motives of his antipathy toward his sister-in-law are stronger than his
desire to become rich. The episode is worth my little trip to Paris;
let us profit by it."
Ever since the now distant time when he had exiled himself in Auvergne
until his work should have been finished, in order not to draw upon his
savings, he had let slip the bonds of friendship that had united him
to many of his comrades in the École de Chartres. Having no parents to
visit, he began to think of them, moved thereto, perhaps, by a last
remark of his patron. All at once a face and a name stood out in his
memory with singular distinctness. Was it not in this very quarter
where he now was, in the Rue de l'Université, that one of his most
charming classmates lived, Raymond de Contay? He was a young man of
high birth, grandson to the famous Duchesse de Contay, who was so well
known for her unbounded charity. After making an excellent record as
student in the same college with Alfred, and having no desire to be an
idler, he had enrolled himself in the École de Chartres. His intention
had been to devote himself to historical work.
If Alfred had probed his own motives he would have recognized the
fact that the sympathy he had formerly felt for this clever and
pleasing youth was not the real cause of the temptation that led him
irresistibly to go to his house this very morning in spite of the
unusual hour. It was nearly noon. "I hope I will find him." A thought
that was not inspired merely by a friendly feeling. The real cause was
that Raymond belonged to the most select class. To Alfred, who had no
idea of the air-tight partitions that divide the different circles of
the various nobilities, this meant that his comrade certainly knew the
Duchesse d'Ivrea, or had heard her spoken of by people who knew her. If
any one could give him exact information about her it was Contay, and
Alfred Boyer felt that he must have this information.
He hungered and thirsted for it, as much as if, instead of being the
simple posthumous secretary to the marshal Prince of Augsbourg, the
blood of this hero coursed in his own veins, and he had a right to
know who bore this title of d'Ivrea, won at the cannon's mouth on the
battlefield. Besides, the will stipulated that the Duchess should
figure in the "Mémoires" as the donor of the letters to Moreau, and
was not his own honor involved in these "Mémoires"? Had he not devoted
two precious years of his youth to them? Was he not ready to devote
a third, with this recompense as his supreme ambition, that his name
as a poor scribbler should one day be linked forever with that of the
mighty warrior of the "Grande Armée"? What if this woman, however,
who bought a place in the book with the gift of her fortune, had made
herself unworthy of the honor by some infamous action? Was such a
thing possible? No. The master of Combes professed such a passionate
reverence for his grandfather!
That her name should be cited in the "Mémoires," that the Prince should
conduct the funeral, that she should be given a place in the tomb of
the Frédets--never would he admit it, even for a moment, and even at
the price of millions, that these three things could be granted to a
person unworthy.
But the Prince had not destroyed the will--then he must have seen some
possibility of conforming to it! Yet his sadness and disgust, the tone
of voice in which he had spoken of _her_, as he put it, his first
movement, his subsequent silence--how were all these contradictory
indications to be reconciled? Alfred hastened his steps toward the sole
chance of learning the whole truth with a feverish impatience that
amounted almost to pain....